Winner-takes-all election means your vote may not count

Updated 11:23 pm, Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Here's where I tell you how important it is to vote. And I do so without reservation for local and state races. But for the presidential election, my heart's just not in it.

I feel this way not because Texas is indisputably in the red column. I'd feel the same way if it was predictably blue.

It's just that Texas' winner-take-all approach to its Electoral College votes means your presidential vote means very nearly squat.

If your vote is Republican and is among the excess above 50 percent plus one, it is as if you did not vote for anyone for president. If you are a Texas Democrat, well, your vote for president doesn't even rise to the level of even nearly squat.

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Of course, vote in the presidential election anyway. You can at least say you went down swinging and red will stay red and blue blue only as long as folks' votes or demographics don't change.

But at the moment, the dynamics of national politics and the Electoral College mean Texas' 38 electoral votes — four more than it had in 2008 and second only to California's 55 in 2012 — have as much weight as North Dakota's three.

Swing states rule. States that are reliably red or blue just don't count in national politics and that means diminished influence in shaping national policy.

We are among what former Minnesota GOP state Rep. Laura Brod, a reform advocate working with National Popular Vote, calls the “ATM states,” places visited only to collect cash.

Winning swing state Ohio's popular vote is important because of its 18 electoral votes, though that is 20 fewer than Texas has.

Ardently wooed Iowa's popular vote will dictate where its six votes (32 fewer than Texas) go — all for Mitt Romney or for Barack Obama no matter whether that popular vote was overwhelming or by the narrowest of margins.

Let's talk policy impact. The Latino votes in Nevada and Colorado are thought to be crucial, about the only reason immigration has been talked about seriously at all this year.

But we'd already have immigration reform if the parties couldn't so casually take the Latino votes in the popular votes in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for granted.

And there's this: It's possible that Romney wins the popular vote nationally this year and still loses the presidency.

If that happens, it will be interesting to see if the folks who shrugged when Al Gore won the popular vote but came up short in the Electoral College continue shrugging. Me? I'll take fleeting guilty pleasure to savor the irony but will be just as outraged in 2012 as I was in 2000.

Last year, state Rep. Richard Raymond, Democrat of Laredo, introduced a bill that would change how Texas awards its Electoral College votes, a right left to the states by the U.S. Constitution. It didn't get far.

It was part of an effort by National Popular Vote, a group that advocates a specific form of reform. If enough state legislatures sign on, such legislation would guarantee that the presidency goes to the person who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

It kicks in if enough states — equaling or surpassing 270 Electoral College votes — agree, no U.S. constitutional amendment required.

If a Republican this year wins the popular vote but loses the presidency, this should warrant legitimate outrage. But if this brings red state Texas around on the Electoral College, this will at least have the makings of a silver lining.